How Rugged Devices Serve the Supply Chain Industry

by Sonali Datta on November 12, 2019

The growing importance and relevance of rugged devices in certain industrial sectors is unmistakable. Given the kinds of operations and everyday tasks that are being carried out at supply chain industry, employees need to work with company devices that are extremely durable, tough and come powered with necessary features. Supply chain workers operate under some harsh, challenging and unpredictable environments wherein normal smartphones will definitely not serve the business purpose.

Your frontline workers and field force working in the supply chain industry are totally dependent on the usage on rugged devices as these devices play an irreplaceable role in helping them perform multiple tasks and operations.

From helping supply chain executives to manage product inventories, collaborating with stakeholders and partners, scrutinize accurate item delivery process to communicating with the team in real time – rugged devices’ use cases are immense. Let’s dig deeper to know how rugged devices are benefitting the supply chain industry in multiple ways.

What makes rugged devices perfect for supply chain industry

Executives in the supply chain sector need to use the mobile devices in difficult situations and inconvenient locations like warehouses, retail stores, over the road, on-the-move, shipyards, coal mines, construction sites, customers’ front doors and so on. Basically, in supply chain and logistics management, field executives need to instantly collect, feed, access, update and exchange data and information in the mobile-integrated enterprise software system in a most secure and accurate manner.

Also Read: Know how to secure your Android rugged devices

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However, using usual smart mobile devices in these difficult terrains and tough operating conditions always come with a fear of device breakage, downtime or damage that can be caused by a number of unpredictable weather and working conditions. Hence, devices used in supply chain and similar industries are expected to be sufficiently tough and hardy to withstand sudden drops from a forklift or on the road while driving. They need to tolerate adverse conditions like rain, sandstorms, blizzards, extreme temperatures in places like mineral mines, construction sites, truck vibrations and so on. These devices must be water-proof to avoid damage even if they are dropped into a water-body by a staff in a shipyard.

So, in short, frontline executives and field force involved in supply chain industry are the ones who often indulge in multi-tasking and hence they depend on the durability of the rugged devices to ensure that all their business requirements from mobile devices are met without any extra hassle. The longevity of rugged devices makes these the perfect fit for this industry.

Rugged devices use cases in supply chain industry

Supply chain workers mostly involve company transportation staff, production line staff, delivery executives, warehouse staff and retail store clerks who need to keep up with the daily productivity and routine tasks of filling up critical data entries, which the supply chain operations depend heavily upon. According to the Panasonic report, in ideal cases, companies prefer using ruggedized devices with special features like reliability, connectivity, uptime, product design, screen display and casings.

As per the same survey, rugged devices can be aptly leveraged in the supply chain industry for carrying out the following primary applications

Barcode scanning for tracking and inventory management
Picking, sorting and packing
Inventory tracking and management
Shipping and receiving
Restocking and waste management
Quality control inspection
Container level tagging and management
Asset management

Read This: Know everything you need to about rugged devices

Rugged devices in supply chain offers the required portability, flexibility and convenience on top of other functionalities like larger screen sizes, integrated GPS, embedded broadband, extensive battery life, better processor performance, access to wider suite of enterprise applications, barcode readers, and other functionalities. The new generation of rugged devices are expected to be used in an array of applications like tracking of goods in real time, merchandise management, sipping and storage.

Ruggedized handheld devices play a strong role in streamlining all the supply chain activities at different levels of the value chain, from start to end.

Manufacturing: Rugged devices are used by supervisors and engineers who can access and assess engineering schematics and track the work in process while keeping the management, customers, suppliers and stakeholders updated and aware of the status about specific orders. These are also used to access applications, review data, issue detection and problem escalation.

Warehouse: Factory staff can use rugged devices that can be considered as the low-cost alternative to forklift-mounted terminals and fixed-station computers. Rugged tablets integrated with RFID, barcode scanning and wireless LAN communications, can be used for activities like picking, packing, receiving, shipping and other quality/quantity measurement applications.

Also Read: Secure and manage rugged devices for frontline workers

Transportation & Delivery: Rugged device usage make it possible for the shippers and carriers to go paperless by keeping digital records and by automating hours of service tracking, pre-trip inspections and driver logs. Rugged device becomes a single digital source for providing onboard GPS, offering dispatch and scheduling information along with invoicing and inventory capabilities. Companies can also track their shipments with the help of GPS-enabled vehicle mounted rugged devices that share details about vehicle/asset location and departure and arrival timings in real time with the company and the customers.

Retail: In the retail part of supply chain, rugged tablets are used for multiple use cases like RFID and barcode scanning, credit card processing, management of retain inventory, storage, exchange, line busting, mPOS, promotion tracking, NFC transactions, customer feedback gathering and so on.

As the importance of rugged devices keeps growing in the supply chain, so is the urgency for these companies to manage the rugged devices while securing the corporate data they carry within them. When it comes to securing, managing and monitoring your rugged devices, make sure to implement the right mobile device management solution for best business benefits.